Survival of English Language I . Introduction—English

Survival of English Language
    Good morning. Twice in its history, English came very close to joining the list of dead languages. Yet, this language of a small island not only survived, but lived to be spoken by an estimated 1. 5 billion people in the 21st century. Today we shall have a look at how English escaped its extinction.
    Death is a common fate of unwritten languages.(1)But written records of the languages spoken on the island of Britain show us how the English language became the language of the island and how it survived. We now turn to those written records.
    There are five critical periods in the survival of the English language.
    1)410 CE to the mid-eighth century
    Early in the fifth century, Rome recalled its legions and told the Britons to defend themselves.(2)Rich, unprotected, and attacked from all sides, King Vortigern on the East coast invited Germanic mercenaries to cross the channel to defend him against his enemies within and without. These mercenaries, mostly Angle and Saxon clans of Germanic peoples, called their language " englisc"(pronounced " anglish").
    The language of the Germanic mercenaries became the language of the conquered area.(3)From the seventh through the mid-eighth centuries York in Northumbria, famed for its schools and for its literary productions, was the center of the English-speaking world.
    2)Mid-eighth century to 899
    By the mid 700’s, the Anglo-Saxons were on the receiving end of slaughter and ruin by Danish armies. The Danes overran all the Anglo-Saxon areas, including Northumbria, the heartland of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England. Wessex, ruled by Alfred the Great, remained the only area still controlled by English-speakers. The Danes were neither united nor had a united command: Alfred did.(4)Eventually, Alfred forced the Danes back. Danish Northumbria submitted to Alfred in 886.
    After a century and more of death and destruction, very few literate English-speaking people remained. Alfred set out to revive the language through education and writing. In 891 he sent out a call for anybody who could read or write. Outside of his personal staff, the handwriting of only eight new people appeared in the earliest records. The center of literary production shifted from York in Northumbria to Winchester in Wessex.
     (5)Due to Alfred’s education programs, most of the existing laws, poems, songs and stories were in the West Saxon dialect of his Wessex. Alfred died in 899.
    3)959 to 1066
    In 959, King Edgar, the great-grandson of Alfred, ruled both Danes and Saxons in England. The incompetent King Ethelred the Unready succeeded Edgar. He could not control the Danes.(6)More Danes invaded: civil war followed. This second time, violent battles ended in a tie. The Danish leader, Canute, and Saxon King-elect, Edmund Ironsides, divided the country into Danish and English speaking areas. Canute and Edmund made a compromise that a united kingdom went to whoever died first. Two years later, Edmund died: Canute became King of all England in 1018. With Canute the center of literary production moved to London. English remained a written language, at least for sermons and laws.
    Widower Canute wedded Emma, daughter of the Duke of Normandy. She was the mother of Edward, who became king after Canute’s heir from his marriage to Emma died.(7)Raised in Normandy, Edward preferred the French. In 1066, the French-speaking Normans conquered England. Norman French, based in London, became the only language of literature, law, and court. This third time, English became the language of the brutally oppressed illiterate. The language again seemed heading for extinction.
    4)1080 to the 17th century
     (8)After 1080, only a few written documents in English appeared: a last chronicle entry in 1134: a manual for religious women from around 1200. During the twelfth and most of the thirteenth centuries, we have no written records of English laws, poetry, songs, or stories. In 1258 the bilingual French-English " Provisions of Oxford," granting some rights to barons, showed up as the first public document in English in more than 200 years.
    In the 14th century the English language resurfaced as a legal and literary language. Orally transmitted English poetry was preserved in written form in the Auchinleck Manuscript from 1325 to 1330. In 1344 the first petition in English appeared. In the last quarter of the century, Chaucer wrote his works, including the Canterbury Tales, in English. During this same period, John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English, the language of the common people.
    In the fifteenth century, English gave further signs of renewed life. In 1413, King Henry IV wrote the first royal will in English. Religious plays were in English. By the late sixteenth century, we see the flowering of English theater with Shakespeare and Marlowe and Jonson.(9)Modern English arrived in the 17th century. The English language won this " Battle of Britain. "
    5)1837 to Today
    In the nineteenth century, the "sun never set on the British Empire" was in the English language.(10)By the twentieth century, the Empire included India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Bermuda. English, of course, was also the language of the United States. The United States did its part to spread the language to the Philippines and Samoa. There is, however, a substantial difference between the wide-spread, yet irregular, distribution of English in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and today. That difference is the computer, the World Wide Web, and rapid communication.
    Today, not surprisingly, the English language is global in use. English-speakers built the first electronic computing machines during World War II, which heralded the computer age. Years later, the technology that created the Internet and the World Wide Web is primarily the product of speakers and writers of the English language. Instruction manuals and technical documents, as well as printers, keyboards, and monitors are for users of English.
    Now, you’ve got to know the five critical periods of English language. Although other languages across history reached the corners of their then known world, the English language survived near extinction: its written records now endlessly circle the entire world.
So much for today. Thank you for your attention.